Although well described in English, German and some other languages, hedging has not been studied in Russian as an independent linguistic phenomenon. This fact was the main reason attempting to analyse the use of this pragmalinguistic strategy in written sociological texts produced by Russian authors.

The corpus of this research is comprised of 276 scientific articles from the field of sociology published in the journal "Sociologiceskie Issledowania - SOCIS" ("Sociological research" - SOCIS) covering the period 1978-1993. The data obtained as a result of the analysis of this corpus made it possible to achieve the main aims of this publication which are:

- to decide some theoretical problems, namely, elucidation of the correlation between hedging and such linguistic categories/spheres as modality, metadiscourse and the pragmatics of politeness; a definition of hedges; a description/classification of its main functions, strategies and linguistic devices:

- to describe the store of Russian linguistic devices used for hedging, to clear up some peculiarities of the usage of hedges by Russian authors;

- to ascertain the principal factors which exert influence over the selection of devices used in hedging

Vasili V. Namsaraev holds an MA in Russian Literature and Linguistics from the Peoples Friendship University of Moscow (Russia) and Ph.L in Applied Linguistics from the University of Vaasa (Finland). He is currently teaching Russian and Spanish at the University of Vaasa. His main publications concerning hedging are: Linguistic Realization of hedging in Russian Scientific Text (1991, VAKKI-seminaari XI, 195-207, Vaasa: Vaasan yliopisto) and Hedging in Russian Scientific Publications in the Field of Sociology (1993, licentiate dissertation, Vaasa: University of Vaasa, published in Russian).